In a lengthy special report on legal finance in Australia, Chris Merritt begins: “When the world’s largest litigation funder burst onto the Australian market this year, it did so in a way that was intended to make a splash. Burford Capital… agreed to finance a massive class action against AMP.” Mr. Merritt notes soon thereafter that “Class actions are not even Burford’s target market… this funder would be much happier working for big business—providing capital for in-house legal departments and the national law firms that fend off class actions for corporate Australia.” Burford’s Craig Arnott comments:
“Our main target focus group is actually big corporates and the law firms who represent them. That is where we see very significant growth. Australia is very interesting because that really hasn’t started there yet.”